Happily, Mrs. Hearthside has several children, she has been a patient and considerate wife, and has contentedly accepted all the responsibilities of marriage. But when the children began to come Mrs. Hearthside’s life really began to change. The interests of individual sentiment became absorbed in the preponderating interest of the nursery, and the woman was mother before everything; for children satisfied a craving which had grown out of the unanswered longings for a man’s love. So Mrs. Hearthside came to think of her children even before her husband; not that she ever neglects any one of his domestic comforts, or ceases to think of his professional interests—only his heart and hers have never mixed, whereas her children are part of herself. She feels that their lives are of her making, that their hearts are for her to feed with her own; that she is responsible for them, body and soul, and no nurse, no governess, could ever do for them all that she can. So she will spend her days with them in the nursery, see to every detail of their daily comfort, wash them, dress them, make clothes for them. If her husband wishes her to pay afternoon calls on patients whom he is particularly anxious to cultivate, she is sure to have to stop with Tommy, who shows signs of incipient whooping-cough; or to take Cissie out to buy a new hat; or to help Jack with his lessons. There is always something to be done for the children, or some housekeeping detail to be seen to which indirectly relates to them.